Hun Sen’s 6-Hour Reform Promise Met With Yawns

Residents of Phnom Penh on Wednesday expressed boredom and disbelief as Prime Minister Hun Sen passed his previous record-breaking five-hour speech on border demarcation last year with a more than six-hour-long monologue on government reforms he says are planned. Evoking images of elaborate self-criticism sessions the world over—in which party members publicly admit their failings and commit to change for the sake of the party’s future—Mr. Hun Sen promised to turn a new leaf in the CPP’s method of governing after his party’s surprise losses in the July 28 election. “We have many mirrors to use if we want to use them and we learn to accept the reality, including a platform for public consultation with the people that must be done regularly to listen to people’s opinion,” Mr. Hun Sen said in his speech, pledging once more to stamp out corruption by starting from the ministerial level and working downward. “I would like to talk about this issue, and not repeat the problems again and again in this fifth mandate,” he continued in his speech, which was broadcast live on nine television stations. … Koul Panha, executive director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, emphasized that Mr. Hun Sen’s promises to end corruption did not make for compelling viewing because people had heard them many times before. Mr. Panha said the new promises would be as credible as the prime minister’s old promises, so long as he insisted on forging ahead in government with only his ruling party sitting in the National Assembly. “Why doesn’t he compromise and allow the National Assembly to be controlled by the opposition?” he asked. …

 Mech Dara and Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sens-6-hour-reform-promise-met-with-yawns-43401/